625. My 615,
September 21, 2 p.m., referring to Nanking's appeal to us [2] under the Kellogg
Pact, [3] also my 614, September 21, noon.

I desire to
place on record the following as my personal reaction to events described in my
telegram above referred to and to the responsibilities of powers signatory to
Kellogg Pact in relation thereto.

1. According to
all information available to me here, I am driven to the conclusion that the
forceful occupation of all strategic points in South Manchuria, including the
taking over and operation of public utilities, banks, and in Mukden at least
the functions of civil government, is an aggressive act by Japan apparently
long planned and when decided upon most carefully and systematically put into
effect. I find no evidence that these events were the result of accident nor
were they the acts of minor and irresponsible officials.

2. By article 1
of the Kellogg Treaty the high contracting parties, among which is Japan,
renounce war "as an instrument of national policy in their relations with
one another." By article 2 they agree "that the settlement or solution
of all disputes all [or] conflicts of
whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them,
shall never be sought except by pacific means."

3. It is my
conviction that the steps taken by Japan in Manchuria must fall within any
definition of war and certainly may not be considered as a pacific means of
settling a dispute with China, a nation also adherent to the treaty.

4. The treaty providing for the renunciation of war
as a national policy was a solemn undertaking on the part of the nations of the
West and those nations now stand at the bar of the nations of the East to
answer for their sincerity.

[1] Telegram in two sections.

[2] For text of the note of September 21, 1931, from
the Chinese Government to the United States Government, see Conditions in Manchuria, S. Doc. 55, 72d Cong., 1st sess.
(Washington, Government Printing Office, 1932), p. 3.

[3] Department of State Treaty Series No. 796.

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DOCUMENTS

5. It seems to
me necessary that the powers signatory to the Kellogg Treaty owe it to
themselves and to the world to pronounce themselves in regard to this Japanese
act of aggression which I consider to have been deliberately accomplished in
utter and cynical disregard of obligations which Japan as a nation shares with
the other signatories of that pact.